Lets shine some light on this topic!
Everyone wants to bring up the light test, but nobody has any idea what they’re looking at. Yes, black core is more common but Blue core paper was VERY often used for printing under WOTCand Hasbro whether they knew it or not. It was used often to supplement other print runs in the form of commons that people wont pay attention to. Typically shows a matte surface. The light shines through much easier and may look like it’s “fake” at times because people don’t understand what they’re looking at for a light test. All official cards should have a core but don’t spread misinformation that it has to be black when it comes to vintage pokemon. If anyone has any questions, feel free to comment or PM me but theres no reason to rip cards when you could just try to understand what you’re looking at.
Weve seen these everywhere from shadowless base set , early unlimited, various base and jungle holos, base 2, w stamp wartortle
… alot of black star promos.
One thing that has certainly been consistent is the Blue core coming from USA printings.
The Bellsprout, Vaporeon and Electrode/Snorlax shown is an example of cardstocks that commonly used in Belgium and UK.
Australian stocks and some usa printings eventually resembled the Bellsprout and Vaporeon
Most cards in the states back then were on a generic koehler stock that just gives it that cloudy look you see on most older shadowless and unlimited stuff.
Koffing and dratini are examples of a Koehler stock print from UK or USA in the “4th print” compared to a very late USA “4th print” variation that used a very dense stock
Victreebel shown is an example of a fake without a core. The rest of the cards are 1,000% authentic.
In regards to modern fakes, they’re getting better. Recently, they have started using Black core paper and it’s been fooling a lot of people. At this point for convincing fakes, i recommend checkeing to ensure the borders were not printed over with magenta dots. If anyone ever has any issues or questions, im here.
